


Crackpot

by tawg



Series: The Dangers of Dating a High School Principal [3]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Avenger Clint, Clint has feelings about golems, First Kiss, M/M, Mittens the taser, Phil Coulson's taser, Principal Coulson, no coffee was harmed in the writing of this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-17
Updated: 2012-07-17
Packaged: 2017-11-10 04:02:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/462004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tawg/pseuds/tawg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint just wants to grab a cup of coffee with his boyfriend. And for his boyfriend to avoid getting killed if at all possible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crackpot

Clint was considering giving up coffee altogether. 

Coffee had a horrible knack for complicating things. Like his date with badass high school principal, Phil Coulson. If the two of them had just given up on the dream of getting coffee together they could have been on the other side of town, eating lunch or going for a walk or feeding the ducks or grinding up against one another against a building or _something_. But no. Phil had been cranky after a morning meeting with some kind of educational body, and Clint had been free, and at the time it had seemed too early for lunch so, of course, “Let’s grab that coffee”.

They hadn’t even had their drinks in their hands when it all went wrong. Golems. _Golems!_ Phil had been telling Clint about his cat, and then – Bam! Golems. 

“How is this my life?” Clint moaned. He didn’t even entirely believe it. “How am I getting cockblocked by golems?”

“At least he can’t say life with you is boring,” Natasha replied. 

“This isn’t me,” Clint returned. “I swear this isn’t me.”

“It’s the New York lifestyle,” Tony chipped in over the comms. He was having fun knocking the golems over with his blasters. No one had the heart to tell him that it wasn’t exactly effective.

“Fuck New York,” Clint replied good-naturedly, and slid another clip of armour piercing rounds into his rifle. He couldn’t even use a bow and arrow on these things. There was nothing fun whatsoever about dealing with golems. 

“Lighten up,” Natasha returned. She had a spear and was attacking the joints of the golems Tony knocked down. Getting close was risky – most of the golems had ceramic blades instead of hands. Of course they did. It’s not like golems needed to make sandwiches or anything. “This is cake compared to Budapest.”

“Budapest didn’t happen while I was on a _date_ ,” Clint replied, a hint of a whine creeping into his voice.

Natasha managed to separate a foot from a leg and let out a victory cry that made Clint’s ears ring. She was enthused, light on her feet as she sprang to the next golem Tony sent her way. “Where is this man of yours, anyway?”

“He was right – oh shit, _Coulson!_ ” Clint set off, sprinting through the attack site. Because Phil? Did not have a history of getting out of the way when it came to rampages of things. And Clint was guilty of that himself, but Clint was an Avenger and Phil was a principal and Clint wasn’t entirely sure what a principal _did_ , exactly, but he was pretty certain that getting into fisticuffs with golems wasn’t a big part of the job description.

So, of course, Clint skidded around some impressive rubble to the sight of Phil keeping a golem back with a chair, lion tamer style, and herding panicking civilians off the street. “It’s okay,” Clint panted through the comm to anyone who cared. “He’s-”

And then a little girl fell over, and the sound of her crying caught the golem’s attention. It turned away from Phil, and took one heavy, jarring step towards her. Clint was already raising his rifle to make a distraction of himself, but Phil was quick. He smashed the cafe chair in his hands against the golem’s leg, making it drop down onto one knee. The golem let out a silent roar – and that was something that Clint really hated about golems, the way their faces screamed even though they didn’t have voices; why did they even have mouths? It was too creepy – and lashed out at Phil. It got him in the thigh. Its blade of a hand slid right through the flesh like a hot knife through butter. Clint shot the fucker in the head, and that hurt the thing but it didn’t go down. Phil smashed the monster in the face with the remains of his chair and it toppled onto its back, dragging Phil down with it. 

Clint ran towards them, trying to work out the best escape route, the nearest place he could get Phil patched up. Clint vaulted over tables and chairs and kept his eyes fixed on Phil, who was looking dangerously pale compared to the neat charcoal of his suit. Then Phil leaned forwards, pressed one hand against the golem’s forehead and forced its mouth open. Even while Clint was sprinting and Phil had a leg twisted at an awkward angle from the weight of the ceramic blade that still speared it, Phil’s free hand flashed through the air and into the golem’s mouth.

It was Mittens, Coulson’s taser. Phil was tazing a golem right in its big, stupid mouth, with nothing more than a mildly curious expression on his face. And it was working. “Electricity,” Clint shouted into the comm. “Hit them with electricity.”

“Electricity doesn’t work on pottery, Hawks,” Tony shot back. “Clay is not conductive.”

“Hit them in the mouth,” Clint argued back as he skidded to a halt by Coulson. “Whoever built these things left them wet on the inside or something.”

“But that doesn’t-”

“Ha! I’ve got that confirmed,” Natasha said, glee in her voice. “You line them up, Tony, and I’ll take them down.”

Clint put a hand on Phil’s shoulder, and gently eased him back out of his crouch over the golem’s head. It was dead. It was one very dead hunk of clay. The taser was completely drained and Phil looked pretty similar. Phil looked down at his taser, then tucked it back into his jacket pocket. He looked up at Clint and blinked owlishly at him. “My leg feels odd,” he said.

“You’ve been stabbed,” Clint replied. “You’re going into shock.”

“Oh.” Phil looked down at his thigh, and the impressive length of golem that was sticking into it, and wrinkled his nose in annoyance. “This is going to make moving hard.”

Clint snorted. “I like that that’s the part you’re focussing on. ‘Man, the worst thing about this is the _mild inconvenience_ of not being able to move for a short while.’”

“Well, I was hoping you’d walk me to school,” Phil replied. “Maybe hold my books.”

“Lean by your locker and play with your hair while you try to get ready for fourth period?” Clint reached out and brushed some rubble from Phil’s hair. “We’re going to have to swing by the school nurse first.”

It took time to chip away at the clay appendage, to be able to snap it off without snapping Phil’s leg in half. And then the medics descended on them. Phil sighed as they cut the leg of his pants off, and Clint couldn’t help finding that funny. “You still look dapper, I promise.”

“Dapper?” Phil replied as bandages were wrapped around the wound, keeping the blade in place. “I was aiming for stuffy and boring.” Phil’s voice was dry and teasing, and his grip on Clint’s hand was easy and comforting, though it got a little tight when the blade sticking out of his leg was jostled. That was the full extent of his panic, a little pressure on Clint’s fingers, and Clint just wanted to shower him in kisses for being so capable.

Their second attempt at coffee, their third rampage, and they hadn’t even had their first kiss yet. Clint Barton, Agent of SHIELD, marksman extraordinaire, and occasional superhero was not going to let that stand. He brushed his lips against Phil’s forehead and, when Phil closed his eyes and let out a pleased hum, Clint kissed him on the mouth. Simple and chaste and so very sweet considering that they were both covered in bits of golem and Phil was missing half of his pants.

“You weren’t aiming for sexy and worldly?” Clint asked as his pulled away. 

Phil shook his head, a helpless smile on his face. “Not in the least.”

Clint scratched the back of his head with his free hand. “Well, this is embarrassing. I feel kind of bad for wanting to ravish you, now, since that’s apparently not what you were going for.”

“It’s an easy mistake to make,” Phil said consolingly, patting Clint’s wrist. And then he was being loaded into the ambulance and Clint had to step back because there was still clean up going on and he had a job to do. “I’ll text you,” he called before the doors closed. “There may be a card or something.” And then Phil was gone.

Natasha stepped into place beside Clint. “So,” she said. “That was the museum guy.”

“That was him,” Clint agreed.

“He always like that?”

“Hm? Like what?”

“You know,” she said airily, “fighting bad guys, saving the day, making you generally weak at the knees with his witty repartee.” 

“Yeah,” Clint replied. “He’s always like that.”

“Hm.”

“I think you’d like him,” Clint continued. “He’s got this stubborn streak in him when it comes to not dying.”

“It’s a good quality to have,” Natasha said noncommittally, as if it were on par with being able to tie shoelaces. 

“And he has a taser.”

“Also a good quality.”

“He named it Mittens.”

Natasha was silent for a while, then she turned to Clint. She had her serious face on, the kind of face she wore when the words she was about to impart could not be ignored. It was the face she wore when she felt the need to speak her mind, consequences be damned. “Clint,” she said carefully, “I know you like this guy. I know that he seems smart, and funny, and that he has a great ass.”

“It is great,” Clint agreed.

“And I want you to know that I’m saying this not just as your friend, but as the one person who always has your back in this business.” Clint braced himself for the bombshell, and nodded for her to continue. “Clint,” Natasha laid a hand on his shoulder, “you need to have his babies. I am serious. If you let anyone else snap this guy up, I will kick your ass.”

Clint grinned, and pulled her into a crushing hug. “Thank you,” he mumbled into her hair. “Thank you, thank you.”

“Just don’t give up on this,” she replied. “Not even when it gets hard.”

“I won’t.”


End file.
